


Holed Up

by troiing



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 07:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4867874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troiing/pseuds/troiing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen and Nikola are caught in a snowstorm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holed Up

Branches rustle as Nikola finishes the job, blocking off the opening of their hastily-constructed shelter - and taking great pains to do it against the heavy wind and blowing snow. The timing’s too close for her liking, and even Nikola’s struggling, but her fingers are too numb for this.

He’s finished soon anyway, and it’s just the sound of her breathing that fills their little dugout. Her breathing, labored and hitching with the cold, and his victorious little chuckle.

“Well then!” he says, and she can’t help but laugh a little too.

It’s not the first time she’s taken refuge in a shelter like this, but she glances around the tight space anyway, marveling at the insulating properties of the snow, and the warmth in here, out of the wind.

Surrounded by the walls of snow, everything’s eerily quiet.

That’s something she’ll never get used to: the distant sound of a wind billowing a bare few feet overhead, upsetting the thick nest of limbs and the great mass of tree standing as the centerpiece of their shelter. There's nothing but fabric on fabric when she moves, shaking, to take her gloves off. She just manages to unfasten her coat enough to shove her hands inside of it, against her body, closing in on herself.

“Too close, Nikola,” she breathes, but she knows they’ll be fine, and a trace of a smile lingers at the edge of her mouth while she shivers, nestling into the springy, branch-covered floor.

“You love every minute of this,” he counters.

The space is confined out of both practicality and necessity, but he keeps his distance, and she watches everything but him as she listens to the sound of their breathing and the crack of wood and the howl of wind, and thinks it’s silly how distracting the cold of her fingers beneath her armpits can be.

“Alright?” he asks after a span, and she realizes only then that Nikola's breathing has leveled, but hers has not. She decides to blame the chill itself.

“I’ll be fine,” she says with bravado. They both know she will, but right now, she doesn't quite feel that way.

He's concerned enough to go shuffling through her pack, chuckling bemusedly at the little packs of hand warmers even as he opens them. "Heinrich knows how to pack for cold weather. Here."

They don’t seem like much, but god, they help. Fingers still tingling with cold, she grips the things as they warm, watching him watch her for a while. Then she puffs out a breath, arching a frozen brow at him. "Think you might do something useful?”

“Please. I almost single-handedly constructed the shelter,” he banters in his well-practiced petulant tone, and she can only sigh in response.

“Well, come here anyway,” she says as tartly as she may. "I’m frozen through.“

Her breath hovers hot in the air, trapped in the folds of his clothes as she breathes, and she nestles her forehead against his chest to wait out the storm.


End file.
